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Shakespeare on Stage
Original Shakespeare Company, As You Like It. To Jun. 23, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
SIP Editors, Measure for Measure. To Aug. 4, 2013.
Original Shakespeare Company, A Midsommer Night's Dreame (Midsummer Midsommer). To Jun. 21, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, All's Well That Ends Well. To Nov. 29, 2013.
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Hamlet (Modern, Based on Quarto 2)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: David Bevington
Not Peer Reviewed

[4.5]

Enter Horatio, [Queen] Gertrard, and a Gentleman.
2745Queen
I will not speak with her.
Gentleman
She is importunate,
Indeed, distract. Her mood will needs be pitied.
Queen What would she have?
Gentleman She speaks much of her father, says she hears
2750There's tricks i'th'world, and hems, and beats her heart,
Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt
That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshapèd use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they yawn at it,
2755And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Horatio 'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
2760Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in.
[Exit Gentleman.]
Enter Ophelia.
Queen [Aside] To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
2765It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Ophelia Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
Queen How now, Ophelia?
Ophelia She sings.
How should I your true love know
From another one?
2770By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
Queen Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
Ophelia Say you? Nay, pray you, mark.
Song.
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone.
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
2774.1Oho!
Queen Nay, but Ophelia--
Ophelia Pray you, mark.
Song.
White his shroud as the mountain snow--
2775
Enter King.
Queen Alas, look here, my lord.
2780Ophelia
[Song.]
Larded all with sweet flowers,
Which bewept to the ground did not go
With true-love showers.
King How do you, pretty lady?
Ophelia Well good dild you. They say the owl was a baker's 2785daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!
King Conceit upon her father.
Ophelia Pray let's have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means, say you this:
2790
Song.
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,
And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
King Pretty Ophelia--
2795Ophelia Indeed, without an oath I'll make an end on't.
[Song.]
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack and fie for shame,
Young men will do't if they come to't;
By Cock, they are too blame.
2800Quoth she, "Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed."
2801.1He answers,
"So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed."
King How long hath she been thus?
2805Ophelia I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him i'th'cold ground. My brother shall know of it. And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! God night, ladies, god night, sweet ladies god night, god night.
[Exit.]
King Follow her close. Give her good watch, I pray you.
[Exit Horatio.]
Oh, this is the poison of deep grief! It springs all from her father's
Death, and now behold! Oh, Gertrard, Gertrard,
2815When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions. First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in thoughts and whispers
2820For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts;
Last, and as much containing as all these,
2825Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on this wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared,
2830Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrard, this,
Like to a murd'ring piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.
A noise within.
Enter a Messenger.
King Attend!
Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
What is the matter?
Messenger
Save yourself, my lord!
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
2840Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord,
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
2845The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry, "Choose we! Laertes shall be king!"
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds:
"Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!"
Queen How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
A noise within.
2850Oh, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
Enter Laertes with others.
King The doors are broke.
Laertes Where is this king?--Sirs, stand you all without.
All No, let's come in.
2855Laertes I pray you, give me leave.
All We will, we will.
Laertes
I thank you. Keep the door.
[Exeunt followers and Messenger.]
O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
Queen
Calmly, good Laertes.
2860Laertes That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries "Cuckold!" to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirchèd brow
Of my true mother.
2865King
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?--
Let him go, Gertrard. Do not fear our person.
There's such divinity doth hedge a king
That treason can but peep to what it would,
2870Acts little of his will.--Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed?--Let him go, Gertrard.--
Speak, man.
Laertes Where is my father?
King Dead.
2875Queen But not by him.
King Let him demand his fill.
Laertes How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
2880I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes, only I'll be revenged
Most throughly for my father.
King Who shall stay you?
2885Laertes My will, not all the world's.
And for my means, I'll husband them so well
They shall go far with little.
King
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
2890Of your dear father, is't writ in your revenge
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
Laertes None but his enemies,
King Will you know them, then?
2895Laertes To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms,
And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
King
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
2900That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment 'pear
As day does to your eye.
2905A noise within.Enter Ophelia
Laertes
Let her come in.
A noise within. 2905Enter Ophelia
How now, what noise is that?
O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight
2910Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May,
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as a poor man's life?
Ophelia Song.
They bore him bare-faced on the bier,
And in his grave rained many a tear.
2920Fare you well, my dove.
Laertes Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
Ophelia You must sing "a-down, a-down," an you call him "a-down-a." Oh, how the wheel becomes it!It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter.
Laertes This nothing's more than matter.
Ophelia There's rosemary; that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies; that's for thoughts.
2930Laertes A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
Ophelia There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace o'Sundays. You may wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy. I would 2935give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say 'a made a good end.
[She sings.]
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Laertes Thought and afflictions, passion, hell itself
2940She turns to favor and to prettiness.
Ophelia Song.
And will 'a not come again?
And will 'a not come again?
No, no, he is dead,
Go to thy deathbed,
He never will come again.
2945His beard was as white as snow,
Flaxen was his pole.
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan.
God 'a' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christians' souls. 2950God buy you!
[Exit, followed by the Queen.]
Laertes Do you this, O God?
King Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
2955And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touched, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
2960Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labor with your soul
To give it due content.
Laertes
Let this be so.
His means of death, his obscure funeral--
2965No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation--
Cry to be heard as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question.
King
So you shall,
2970And where th'offense is, let the great ax fall.
I pray you go with me.
Exeunt.